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Hum... not sure how American retail law works (or if this could apply to Steam even) but in UK retail law if a store advertises something at a price they need to sell it at the said price at the time of attempted transaction.

Thats actually false. They only need to honour the price of the transaction at the point of sale. So if you get to the checkout page and says its .01 then you should get it for .01. Everywhere else is a "call to treat" or something like that, and is not actual sale price. Now there is a false advertisement if they say get this for only 0.01 and when you get there its a different price but that won't cover a automated shop system such as steam.

Also it doesn't count at all, and they can issue refunds/cancel payments if someone bought it KNOWING it was a clear false price.

Some people asked for opinions on Reus, so here's my first impression after having played the tutorials and about a handful of 30 min. games:

There are, unfortunately, quite a few technical quirks. First of all, the dev logo and intro video are cut in half (the upper half of the screen just stays black). A quick dive into the Steam forums suggests that this is caused by a recent Windows update and affects other games as well, so I won't hold it against it. Next, Anti-aliasing: if enabled, I get some light distortion effect on the top and left edge of the screen. Not pretty, but not game-breaking, either. The worst thing, though: There's stuttering. I cannot even say that it only happens when there's a lot going on because it seems pretty random. For a 2D game with a simple style like this, this just can't happen.

For the game itself: The visuals are extremely captivating and what drew my attention in the first place. This is an astonishing achievement considering the fact that the art assets are very simplistic in their nature (if zoomed in completely, they have an almost South Park-esque nature to them). The giants in particular look magnificent!

You have direct control over four different giants who in turn can terra-form the planet (raise mountains, create oceans) and also sow plants, build mines or create animal nests on each "patch". Each of these improvements has a different "symbiosis", so what you get (food, wealth, tech) from every patch depends on what's next to it or in a certain range of it. You can then further enhance each patch with so-called "aspects" to alter its properties or, if certain conditions are fullfilled, "transmute" it into a different resource altogether (for example, you can transmute a blueberry bush into an apple tree which yields more food but has a different symbiosis).

Soon there'll pop up "challenges" - your people may want to build a granary or a trading post - which have to be completed in a limited period of time (usually by providing specific amounts of resources). If successful, an ambassador will spawn who in turn can unlock a new ability for one of you giants (like new and more powerful aspects) - these are temporary and you will have to unlock them in every new game again.

Then there are "developments" (you could say achievements) - certain in-game goals which, when met, will unlock new types of plants, animals and so on which are permanent and will give you more options in future games. This is probably where the long-term motivation stems from because, apart from that, there's not much "meat" to it - no campaign, no different maps, you can only choose between 30, 60, 90 and 120 minute games as well as free-play mode (in which you can't unlock new stuff).

And that's probably my greatest concern: how much lasting appeal is there once you have unlocked all that stuff? Is there any incentive to play once you figured out an "ideal solution" to any given task?

That said, I'd say it's a really neat and fresh concept and it's well executed (apart from the technical issues). I'm definitely gonna play some more of it.

RIP Steam
"You brought us the lowest prices and we gave you all our money."

Today's recommendations:
Trials - Having not played this specific version, I can say Trials is very good fun and offers a comprehensive challenge. I've only heard of improvements from the version I played on XBLA.

Trials Evo on PC remains a fucking horrible port - the worst PC port I think there ever has been.

Even on high-end PCs you stand a good chance of getting stutter and slowdown, textures popping and all that

But it's not just a visual problem - if the game isn't hitting 60fps, you're "losing time" on the clock - because the clock isn't frame-locked. That means you physically cannot beat some objectives at all.

PLEASE don't buy it - it will only encourage them to pass more shovelware onto us.

It's such a massive shame - the game is brilliant - the editor is a work of art - but the port is the worst I've ever seen...